Thursday, March 8, 2018

In our favorite plastic fantastic planned community, the hits don't stop until we get to... somewhere in the middle of the list of Virginia communities.

That's right... Reston was ranked #20 among the best Virginia places to live, according to apparently automated listicle generator Niche.com. Ranked first was Arlington, the place we're all terrified we're about to become, what with its appropriate and carefully planned development around Metro stations (spoiler alert: not likely). That we can live with. But other communities that ranked higher than Reston? Former drive-in Merrifield (#3), exurban particleboard Loudoun wastelands Stone Ridge (#4), Broadlands (#6), South Riding (#7), Ashburn (#13), Cascades (#14) and Landsdowne (#16), I Can't Believe It's Not Herndon! subdivision Franklin Farms (#8) and the I Can't Believe It's Not Franklin Farms! McNair neighborhood (#19), X-rated Brambleton (#10), and the X-rated sounding "Short Pump" (#11), which, just... ick.

Of course, we can blame the eggheads who "crunched the numbers" on such things as "public data sets." We all know life in Reston isn't about the numbers, man! (Except maybe for Pantone codes, but we digress). Fortunately, the folks at Niche also allowed people to write reviews of Reston, and the entries, which generally read like Yelp reviews of a mediocre local drycleaner written by Russian bots and hastily run through Google Translate, really capture the essence of Reston! Just look:

The locals are friendly and non disturbing. Most are not overweight.

Non-disturbing and skinny? Someone pinch us.

Reston va is surrounded by section 8. Crime is everywhere and people are very poor. Almost no one in here owns a car.

Don't tell the folks surrounding us in Oakton and "Great" Falls! We wish no one in Reston owned a car; it would make our dinnertime runs to McTacoHut a lot less stressful.

I no longer wish to raise my daughter here.

Transit-oriented developments: NO GIRLZ ALLOWED.

Gardeners do very well at maintenance with trees and plants. It would be nice if the Reston Association could do something about the colors of the bricks.

They're so... brick colored!

For me the buggiest concern would be little vandalism crimes done by teenagers.

The "buggiest concern" is probably this person's spellcheck.

I also notice the workers in the different restaurants and stores vary not only in age but in race and sex.